Speaking with Game Informer, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has told them they never considered PlayStation 4 to be a always-online solution unlike the next Xbox.

When asked if an always-on connection was considered for the PS4, he replied:

"Did we consider it? No, we didn't consider it. The main reason being that many countries don't have robust internet connections. It makes sense for people to have internet connections to play online games, but for offline games there are many countries that we saw do not really have robust internet." "We didn't even consider that."